Falsani: New pope might modernize gender roles

Nuns, including these women who attended Pope Francis' inaugural mass in St. Peter's Square, could be part of a new era in gender relations within the Catholic church. Early moves by the new pope indicate he may be open to working with powerful women. CATHLEEN FALSANI, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

What must have been going through her mind as the old man knelt before her in his white cassock, poured water over her sockless toes, dried them gently with a hand towel, and then, bowing his head even lower, kissed her foot?

She is a young Muslim woman incarcerated in Rome's Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center.

And the man who followed Jesus' example on Maundy Thursday by humbling himself before her in a posture of servitude as he washed and kissed her foot, is Pope Francis, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

When the new pontiff forsook the Vatican's Holy Week tradition of ceremonially washing the feet of 12 carefully selected priests in a ritual at the basilica of St. John Lateran and chose to wash the feet of young prisoners, his decision drew worldwide praise for its symbolism and ingenuity.

But then Pope Francis did something even more shocking– he included the feet of two women among the 12 that he washed and blessed with a kiss at the prison last week in a liturgical reenactment of what Jesus did for his disciples the night of the Last Supper.

No pope (at least in memory) has ever washed the feet of a woman in the solemn Maundy Thursday ritual. The Associated Press called it his "most significant break with tradition yet," as it was understood by some to be the latest indication in Francis' two-week-old papacy of possible reforms yet to come.

Many more liberal-leaning Catholics have lauded the pope's actions as a sign of his commitment to greater inclusiveness in the life of the church, while some conservative Catholic commentators wrung their hands over the potential precedent the new pope might be setting with his gesture.

The question in my mind (and in the minds of many others) is whether Pope Francis' gesture was more than just that: a gesture, even in its grandeur.

Or is he trying to tell us – his church and the rest of the world – something more profound?

"It's awesome.," Sister Simone Campbell told me on Good Friday by phone from Washington, D.C., where she and some of her sister women religious //? had just finished a meditation on the Stations of the Cross. "The fact that he would wash two young women's feet yesterday was historic."

As I understand it, current liturgical rules exclude women from the Maundy Thursday foot-washing ritual. "It is forbidden to wash women's feet because Christ didn't do it, they say," Campbell said.

You may recognize Campbell's name from her speech at the Democratic National Convention last summer and the much-publicized "Nuns on the Bus" campaign, which she arranged to lobby on behalf of the poor in federal budget negotiations.

The tour also coincided with a Vatican crackdown on women religious in the United States. Campbell is a nun, a lawyer (who practiced for many years in California on behalf of the less fortunate), and the executive director of NETWORK, a progressive Catholic social justice lobby.

She is hopeful, she says, that Pope Francis knows, understands, and perhaps appreciates women better than his papal predecessors.

"He's one of the few cardinals who has the experience of working with a woman as the head of state in Argentina, so he has had the experience of working with women as holders of power and obviously intelligent, smart, policy-driven women who can carry on a strong conversation. This is something really different from the past popes of recent history," Campbell said.

As Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the new pope worked with – and very publicly clashed with on numerous occasions over social issues such as same-sex marriage and contraception – Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kircher. Despite their longtime rivalry, Pope Francis met with de Kircher privately a few days before his inauguration as pontiff, which the president attended.

Nuns, including these women who attended Pope Francis' inaugural mass in St. Peter's Square, could be part of a new era in gender relations within the Catholic church. Early moves by the new pope indicate he may be open to working with powerful women. CATHLEEN FALSANI, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A woman kisses the hand of Pope Francis as he greets the crowd around St Peter's Square after his first weekly general audience as pope on March 27, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. CHRISTOPHER FURLONG, GETTY IMAGES
Nuns watch Pope Francis' installation Mass on a big screen outside the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentine's former cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen as leader of the Catholic Church on March 13. NATACHA PISARENKO, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pope Francis, right, talks with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican, Wednesday, March 20. ROBERTO STUCKERT, ASSOCIATED PRESS

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